What are the secrets of great product page copy?

Product names should reflect customer search terms

This is to maximise SEO opportunities. It’s often the case that many companies suffer from a severe case of 'administration overload' meaning that products, from their first arrival into the company, don’t receive the correct SEO treatment.

This is then carried along until the products are displayed on site with names that don’t reflect how customers would recognise them.

We want to improve on our SEO efforts, and we’ve also been reviewing our meta data and its structure to ensure consistency. Our copywriters also produce on a product by product basis new copy so that no two descriptions are the same.

For this, we are currently running a test on some of our key best-selling products that have had their meta data re-written to understand how much of an impact these changes will make on their ranking and findability. We will look to review this in the next few weeks.

Copy that reflects the company’s tone of voice and is consistent throughout all products

Each company needs to have a distinguished tone of voice that reflects how customers view them. There needs to be a strategy in place where this tone of voice is carried through all ecommerce channels so that the language used in product copy is instantly recognisable.

This in turn will inevitably also contribute to the originality of each product copy. For this, we need copywriters that are able to adapt their writing style easily to suit the company’s tone of voice and who receive the right training to ensure that SEO objectives are met.

For Schuh, we have a clear grasp of our tone of voice (the natural individuality and fun personalities of our staff members) and this is something that we actively promote across all our channels including our stores.

This is something that is highlighted right from the start with our copywriters and we ensure that this is reflected consistently in any copy that they produce.

Positioning on the product page

We can all create innovative copy that meets SEO expectations. However, the customer needs to be able to find the information quickly and easily. There needs to be a clear understanding on what level of the priority ladder product copy sits on a company’s product page?

This depends on how often customers shop on the site, how much information is needed, and if other elements (reviews, offers etc) take precedence over copy.

Key features and benefits

We ensure that the first and foremost priority of information to provide to our customers are the key features and benefits of the shoes with a creative spin on them that reflects Schuh’s tone.

Product copies have a limit of 255 characters and need to include keywords.

Due to the limited character count of our product copy we have often found it difficult to include all the features and benefits of our shoes. We have now launched the ability to include extended descriptions which can provide extra information to our customers.

Check for errors

To ensure that standards are kept high, all our copywriters work to an error percentage goal, which originally began at 5%. This is policed by the Web Content Manager. This percentage goal has been achieved and we are now working to 4%.

All errors are noted and copy that has the potential to receive more SEO related benefits by re-working it is also highlighted and thereafter re-written.

Testing all content on the site

This is a prime objective for us, and the positioning of our copy is something that has been reviewed several times. Using eye tracking software and understanding how our customers are shopping with us; we’re reviewing our product pages for our responsive site.

Write for your user base

From my experience the most important thing is to write for your user base. Sounds obvious, but writing for someone viewing an electrical product is different from an item of clothing. Then within electrical products you could have a remote control (functional) vs an iPad (lifestyle).

Splitting that further, even the functional remote could be a standard replacement remote or a whizzy remote that's shaped like a wand. For clothing it could be a pair of £10 socks (functional) or a £4,000 sheepskin jacket.

Think about how much information is needed

Take into account the range or category of item, price point, how common the item is and to think about how much information the customer is likely to need to make a purchase.

A five-pack of black socks for £10 might state that they're cotton, sizes 8-10, machine washable which you could cover off in bullet point form to allow the customer to scan-read the functional aspects of the product.

Differentiate your product copy

Quite often retailers are caught up with 'samey' product copy and certainly for branded items which are sold through various websites it can be difficult to differentiate your product copy. I would recommend, where it is feasible, to write specific copy for each item.

I'd hazard a guess that product copy nowadays probably ranks lower in terms of influence than images, videos, reviews and ratings, pricing, promotion, page layout, delivery and returns info among others so I guess it really depends on whether you've pushed the product page as far as you can.

I think many retailers can get away with fairly standard product copy as they may have market authority or awareness, are niche, or have really good images, page design, reviews etc and so product copy can play a smaller part in conversion.

Hi Shadrach,
Unfortunately we don't have anything that's automated just yet. We are in the midst of producing a QC system that will allow me to do random checks, however, at the moment I personally look through at minimum 20% but always aim to look through all new product descriptions on a daily basis to pick up on any errors. I created a document for all my copy writers highlighting specifically different types of errors that I'll be looking out for, e.g. human errors, wrong colour/material references, IT generated errors, etc. These are then recorded on a weekly basis and the percentage is generated from the number of products we processed that week which are also fed back to the copywriters so they're aware of their progress. If and when they don't reach the target, this is followed up immediately by myself. The entire process can be a timely task during peak periods when product numbers landing into the business are at their highest, however, it's been a huge benefit to our copy writers and working to a percentage goal has been a great motivator to them!

about 3 years ago

James

Hi Iris - I was wondering how many products are you working through per week in peak times? Also how many copy writers your team requires to get through this?

Hi James - During peak periods we could be processing up to anywhere around 200 products per week and we have a couple of in house copy writers. The pressure is definitely on for them during these periods, however, they manage just fine! They work very hard and quickly - I can honestly say that they have never had any backlog of product copies to process. Their prime aim is to always get the products up on to the site as quickly and efficiently as possible to make sales!

Hi Iris,
Obviously persuasive writing comes in to play when creating product copy, but I was wondering how you view negative terms on a product page?
For example, we sell glassware in different quantities for ease of the customer, so our set of 4 glasses will not be boxed. I make sure my team are careful to not mention packaging anywhere in the description so that customers can't get confused, however our customer services team might then ask me to add a note to say they don't come boxed.
My argument is that we could list hundreds of things the product doesn't have, but that's not going to persuade a potential buyer.
What are your thought on this?

Hi James,
I completely understand where you're coming from regarding negative terms on a product page. I think the challenge is to find that balance between using persuasive copy while also anticipating customer queries. The ultimate goal is to always display the information that's most useful to the customer. For example, on some of our product pages we need to include extra information regarding sizing as some of our products come in American sizes rather than UK sizes. One could consider that this isn't necessarily sales persuading information but it's something that's useful to the customer and will aid them in their purchase.

We take any suggestions provided by our Customer Services Department very seriously since other than our store staff, they are the ones that are closest to our customers. I think the key thing here is to know where the line is. It's about identifying what's actually considered negative, and what information can be turned from a negative to a positive. It's very easy to include excess amounts of information but as long as you keep in mind how each piece of content is beneficial to the customer we can get a winning formula.

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